Negro League Baseball
The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
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Narrated by:
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Todd Barsness
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By:
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Neil Lanctot
About this listen
The story of black professional baseball provides a remarkable perspective on several major themes in modern African American history: the initial black response to segregation, the subsequent struggle to establish successful separate enterprises, and the later movement toward integration. Baseball functioned as a critical component in the separate economy catering to black consumers in the urban centers of the North and South. While most black businesses struggled to survive from year to year, professional baseball teams and leagues operated for decades, representing a major achievement in black enterprise and institution building.
Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution presents the extraordinary history of a great African American achievement, from its lowest ebb during the Depression, through its golden age and World War II, until its gradual disappearance during the early years of the civil rights era. Faced with only a limited amount of correspondence and documents, Lanctot consulted virtually every sports page of every black newspaper located in a league city. He then conducted interviews with former players and scrutinized existing financial, court, and federal records.
Through his efforts, Lanctot has painstakingly reconstructed the institutional history of black professional baseball, locating the players, teams, owners, and fans in the wider context of the league's administration. In addition, he provides valuable insight into the changing attitudes of African Americans toward the need for separate institutions.
Winner of the 2005 Seymour Medal of the Society for American Baseball Research
©2004 Neil Lanctot (P)2012 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team's Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. By quantifying the game's intangibles, they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay an American League pennant. This is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
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No Strategies or Insight
- By Victor Luera on 10-11-12
By: Jonah Keri
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Baseball
- A History of America's Game
- By: Benjamin G. Rader
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A succinct history of baseball, newly revised and updated. In this third edition of his lively history of America's game, widely recognized as the best of its kind, Benjamin G. Rader expands his scope, covering record crowds and record income, construction of new ballparks, a change in the strike zone, a surge in recruiting Japanese players, and an emerging cadre of explosive long-ball hitters. The book is published by The University of Illinois Press.
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Good book!
- By Judy Ellis on 04-15-18
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Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
- By: Ezra F. Vogel
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 33 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton", Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late 20th century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yet he also answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.
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Another butcher of the Chinese language
- By Jack Hanson on 09-19-21
By: Ezra F. Vogel
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The Fall of the House of FIFA
- The Multimillion-Dollar Corruption at the Heart of Global Soccer
- By: David Conn
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.
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quite good
- By kevin m on 12-14-17
By: David Conn
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Indentured
- The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA
- By: Joe Nocera, Ben Strauss
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune - at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests dead last.
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An Armament agnst NCAA: Enlightening, Infuriating
- By W Perry Hall on 03-15-16
By: Joe Nocera, and others
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The Heritage
- Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism
- By: Howard Bryant
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. Teams wear camouflage jerseys to honor those who serve; police officers throw out first pitches; soldiers surprise their families with homecomings at halftime. Sports and politics are decidedly entwined. But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start were committing a political act simply by being on the field.
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I guess there’s a reason why this one was so heavily discounted. One sided not really worth listening to.
- By Dwight Henning on 07-17-24
By: Howard Bryant
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The Billionaires Club
- By: James Montague
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon a time football was run by modest local businessmen. Today it is the plaything of billionaire oligarchs, staggeringly wealthy from oil and gas, from royalty, or from murkier sources. But who are these new masters of the universe? Where did all their money come from? And what do they want with our beautiful game? In The Billionaires Club James Montague delves deeper than anyone else has dared, to tell this story for the first time.
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So boring! There is no cohesive story
- By Patrick Johnson on 02-15-22
By: James Montague
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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The "Down Goes Brown" History of the NHL
- The World's Most Beautiful Sport, the World's Most Ridiculous League
- By: Sean McIndoe
- Narrated by: Sean McIndoe
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Sean McIndoe of Down Goes Brown, one of hockey's favorite and funniest writers, takes aim at the game's most memorable moments - especially if they're memorable for the wrong reasons - in this warts-and-all history of the NHL.
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Fun, fascinating education in hockey history
- By D. Trull on 03-27-19
By: Sean McIndoe
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Louis D. Brandeis
- A Life
- By: Melvin I Urofsky
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The first full-scale biography in 25 years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court - an audiobook that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit. As a lawyer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced.
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a Listen to Louis D. Brandeis
- By J on 07-11-10
By: Melvin I Urofsky
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When Affirmative Action Was White
- An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
- By: Ira Katznelson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this "penetrating new analysis" ( New York Times Book Review), Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of 20th century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by southern democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity.
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Absolute Must Read
- By Andrew on 01-02-18
By: Ira Katznelson
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The Club
- How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports
- By: Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly 200 countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.
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Read don't listen
- By JR3 on 01-23-19
By: Joshua Robinson, and others
What listeners say about Negro League Baseball
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JohnFern0813
- 06-08-16
The research is the message
Negro league baseball is a compilation of exhaustive research completed by the author. It is about the business of Negro league baseball and less about its players. It serves an important purpose as documentation of the business of the Negro league. However it is a long and not so entertaining listen. I would suggest it only for those Who are interested in learning about the business of the Negro league and not its entertainment value.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Steven Gerweck
- 09-21-22
The definitive history of negro league baseball
Neil Lanctot’s “Negro League Baseball” is the definitive history of Negro League Baseball in the United States. The author maps out the rise of this once beloved enterprise, the growing pains along the way, and its ultimate demise after Jackie Robinson finally broke the color barrier. Black entrepreneurs such as Cumberland “Cum” Posey, Gus Greenlee, Rube Foster, Abe Manley, and Ed Bolden created a league that played a positive social and economic role in black communities.
While Major League Baseball banned the participation of many talented black athletes for decades, the Negro Leagues were more diverse and succeeded with white American business man J. L. Wilkinson, who owned the prized Kansas City Monarchs for decades, and also served as secretary for the Negro National League. Effa Manley (Abe’s wife), who may have identified herself as black, was a successful white executive with the always competitive Newark Eagles.
The negro teams played lucrative games against semi pro and professional white teams, and rented Major League stadiums owned by white baseball owners that excluded blacks from playing in their league. The annual East West All-Star game played at Comiskey Park in Chicago, became a financial success for Negro League Baseball. The game was attended by more than 50,000 rapid fans in 1941 and 1943, and managed to survive until the 1960s.
Lanctot does an outstanding job of establishing the league’s hardships during the great depression, and the resiliency the league demonstrated during the war years. Despite the mounting restrictions on fuel and tires, the league preserved, even surviving while players were serving their country. Segregation forced teams to travel by bus, often times being denied service at restaurants, and being unable to find hotels that would allow them to rent rooms.
“Negro League Baseball” traces the path to integration, when the status quo finally struck out. The author superbly breaks down the social, cultural, and economic impact of integration. Many negro players were plucked from the Negro League’s without properly compensating the owners. The often outspoken Effa Manley voiced her dissatisfaction when she was forced to sell a player for $5,000, when the same player would have been purchased for $100,000 had they been white.
Lanctot writes the final chapter on Negro League Baseball, but not before future hall of famer’s Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, and Hank Aaron came through the circuit. Teams sold players to just to survive, but ultimately, couldn’t replace the talent being absorbed into the Major Leagues. In survival mode, many owners turned to gimmicks, such as featuring women, midgets, and clowns to attract an audience. The author puts the legacy of Negro League Baseball into proper perspective.
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